[Avodah] Bat Issues

[Shoshana L. Boublil]

> Subject: [Avodah] bat issues

> http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2011/11/bat-responsa.html
> 
> some modern  torah  approaches  to  realities  of  today's science,  in
> this  case  bat  reproduction

[SLB writes] Following some questions and comments off line, I want to
clarify the issue.

IMHO, Chazal are not using the terms "nursing" and "egg-laying" as
end-result descriptive but rather as titles [i.e. the names] of 2 distinct
reproductive processes, which we can generally speaking differentiate
between b/c they have distinct end results:
Process A results in nursing;
Process B results in egg-laying.

Then there are the bats. Bats are the exception. Their reproductive process
is like the "egg laying" animals, but their issue is a baby bat that is
nursed by its mother, so if you want to use the visual end-result to
determine which process of reproduction is used by the bat, Chazal are
telling us that in this case, despite the end-result of a nursing young, the
reproductive process is like the case of the egg-laying animals.

What are the differences?
Mammals have a single stage process: male meets female; sperm attempts to
penetrate the egg and if successful there is a pregnancy that ends in the
birth of a nursing young one (or more).  This is called by Chazal the
"nursing" reproductive process.

Most egg-laying birds, OTOH, have a 2 stage reproductive process:
Stage 1: male meets female, sperm is transferred and STORED by the female
SEPARATELY from her egg(s).
Stage 2: At an appropriate time (minutes/hours/days/months later) inside the
female body the sperm meets the egg (the male is long gone at this point...)
and the egg is impregnated. Usually, the egg is laid, and this is the
indicator that this reproductive process has occurred.

Bats are different: They start with the reproductive process of "egg laying"
birds, storing the sperm for a period of time (even 6 months!) and only when
there is sufficient food and the weather is appropriate does the sperm meet
the egg and a pregnancy and nursing young is born.

I would like to note that there is a fourth reproductive process, used by a
minority of bats and by some other species where the first part of the
process is like the mammals, sperm meets egg immediately, but at this point
the female sends the fertilized egg into a hibernation-like stasis. The
fertilized egg remains in this way until conditions are favorable, and then
it matures and a nursing young is born. As in this case the process is
similar to the regular mammalian process and the result is a nursing young,
Chazal did not differentiate it in this section of the G'mara.

Shoshana L. Boublil